Was that a joke, you ask? Well, yes. But not only mine. It was Wilhelm Busch himself who joked. In his inimitable fashion, of course: with a twinkle in his eye, his tongue firmly in cheek, and his heart full of understanding. Sorry, compassion.
I shouldn't beat about the Busch? Sorry, I have been habituated by the sounds of it.
But I should tell you straight-up what's behind my innuendos? Dear friend, be careful what you ask for! Busch has been far kinder to you than I ever will!
But you insist? Ok, straight-up, then. But let me first explain why I shall comply with your suggestion. It is my obsession with, hence obligation to metaphors that makes me entertain your curious notion.
To wit: what is poetry, after all, but a resonant metaphor for life? [That, I admit, excludes some learned and some modern poetries - which, perhaps, never were. Ditto for some learned and some modern musics. No resonance there, you know...]
Busch's poem alludes to Buddhist tenets like impermanence (illusion), karma and re-incarnation - and does so, unmistakably, with delightful metaphors and other tropes. But impermanence, karma and reincarnation are also metaphors in their own right. Or so I intend to argue.
Eastern 'reincarnation', then. And, as long as we are at it, include Western 'original sin'. These two are closely related. To one another and to the poetry of Wilhelm Busch.
You don't understand? Well, Busch was only too aware of what the good books sometimes call "the human flaw". In fact, Busch's life and work was one great celebration of the 'human flaw'. He was kind about it, because he understood it.
Understood what, you ask? Well, that 'reincarnation' and 'original sin' (and then some) are metaphors for 'the human flaw'. Something went wrong, early on, with Homo xxx. (Not with Homo sapiens, mind you: we haven't got that far yet.) Most humans would readily agree that we "lost paradise" somewhere on the way.
Of course, once one insists on such metaphors being historical fact/law, they will turn illogical and oppressive. Not to mention laughable. There is no room for paradise, for original sin or for reincarnation in a Cartesian world, never mind Descartes' own inherited beliefs. What rang convincingly true as a spiritual metaphor rings jarringly untrue as a historical statement.
So, if not a statement of historical and/or ongoing events, where do the metaphors of 'original sin' and 'reincarnation' come from? [And let's leave aside Gnosticism - the only religion that provides a formally logical explanation for the corruption of man - or, rather, of 'god'.]
The 'original sin' of the West, re-inherited since 'Adam and Eve' (or, if you prefer, the karma re-incarnated by 'millions of mothers' in the East) is very real in the psyche of man. Things are not as they should be, are they? We are a deeply flawed species...
But that, mind you, is the judgement of humans, i.e. a judgement based on human standards. Hence relative. Now the big question: Is it we, who are flawed - or is our standards?
Humans have always judged not by what is, but what - they think - should be. (Or, in Germany, the other way around: "Nicht sein kann, was nicht sein darf".) True - and truly irrational. Now, why would anybody do something stupid like this?
Because we have no choice, that's why. The strategy of Mother Nature (please forgive my metaphor: I mean of course the Darwinian process of evolution) is hell-bent on survival in this mother of all battles - and never mind the cruel weapons, never mind the slaughtered grunts, never mind the suffering of the "civilians". The strategy of Mother Nature quite naturally disregards collateral damage.
It is a vicious circle. And it is this feeling of a 'human flaw', of an original sin, of an ever re-incarnated karma that drives us toward a 'better' world. Our need to account for and remedy 'the human flaw' means, in essence, to 'blame the victim', that is ourselves. So if the human happens to have been genetically raped by Mother Nature, he must have provoked it at some time, and hence must be guilty and subject to punishment, in eternitas eternitatem, correct?
[Educator's Comment: Shifting guilt and blaming the victim is - though we are understandably repelled by it - a most effective educational tool. It is used to great effect not only in classroom education, but also in religions, wars, globalization, environmental doomsday scenarios, and so on. Where would, say, Christianity be without sin, without fire and brimstone?]
That's it, my straight-up friend: It is NOT our fault! (Or, at worst, it is our fault only to the extent of our own stupidity - which, come to think of it, isn't really OUR fault, either).
Not OUR fault, get it! Still, we do have to live it. Which is where the understanding smile and the multi-purpose pen of Wilhelm Busch come in...
That's ok for Busch, you say, but not for an old prof masquerading as a webmaster? How cynical, how arrogant of me to consider old, hallowed beliefs like reincarnation and original sin mere metaphors?
Au contraire, mon capitaine (as Startrek's Q would say)! And please apologize immediately for saying "mere", or I'll drown you in one! Metaphors are deep, they are far superior to 'rational' (definable, explanatory) terms when an account of the human condition is called for.
I should be ashamed of myself? Am I not a natural scientist by profession? Do any metaphors exist in chemistry?
Well, no. I hope not. Not in chemistry anyway (there exist some mathematically camouflaged ones in theoretical physics). But, see, I am retired now: free to websight what I like.
And poetry, as we agreed, is a resonant metaphor for human life. Is there anything wrong, then, in my webcited 'Requiem for the Human Fall' (admittedly only a Süssmeier version)? Nothing, mon cher ami, except that Busch said it all clearer and shorter und much more enjoyable...
So throw away your crutches and follow him!
